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Pennsylvania House of Representatives
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20170&cosponId=24732
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House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: October 17, 2017 09:33 AM
From: Representative Patrick J. Harkins
To: All House members
Subject: Amending the Credit Reporting Agency Act to eliminate the credit freeze fee and reduce the fee to temporarily lift a credit freeze
 
In the near future, I plan to introduce legislation that will amend the Credit Reporting Agency Act by prohibiting credit reporting agencies from imposing a fee on consumers who place a security freeze on their credit and reducing the fee agencies may impose on consumers for temporarily lifting a freeze.

I was recently contacted by a constituent who has had a credit freeze in place for quite some time, however, each time the constituent temporarily lifts the freeze, they incur fees from each of the major credit reporting agencies. Further, because Pennsylvania law provides that the maximum duration of a credit freeze is seven years, the constituent also incurs fees to reinstitute the credit freeze each time it expires.

In addition, the Pennsylvania Attorney General, along with a bipartisan group of 32 Attorney Generals from across the country, recently sent a letter to Equifax demanding the credit reporting agency stop charging fees to consumers attempting to freeze their credit following the massive data breach affecting 143 million Americans, including over five million Pennsylvanians.

Currently, Pennsylvania law allows credit reporting agencies to charge consumers up to $10 to place a security freeze and up to $10 each time a consumer wishes to temporarily lift the security freeze.

Eliminating the fee to place a security freeze on a credit report and reducing the fee, from $10 to $5, to temporarily lift a credit freeze will better enable all our constituents fight identity theft and effectively deal with the Equifax data breach.

Please join me in sponsoring this important consumer protection legislation.



Introduced as HB1911